Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin – Official weights

By Sean Jones: IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (37-0, 33 KOs) weighed in at a trim looking 160 pounds on Friday in front of a huge crowd of 9,000 boxing fans for his fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (49-1-1, 34 KOs) on Saturday night on HBO pay-per-view at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Canelo also weighed in at 160 lbs. at the middleweight limit.

During the face off, Golovkin looked physically like the bigger guy despite weighing in at the same amount as Canelo. It was a fast face off with Canelo nodding his head at Golovkin as a sign of respect right before he turned away to face the huge boxing crowd. Surprisingly, the fans didn’t boo Golovkin.

It was clearly a pro-Canelo crowd, but they showed a lot of appreciation for Golovkin. There wasn’t any real booing, of Triple G like you would think there would have been. The fans showed him respect.
Golovkin said he’s going to give a “Big gift to the people” on Saturday night.

The two fighters were at the same weight at the weigh-in, but Canelo could be as high as 185 lbs. by fight time on Saturday night. At the very least, Canelo could be 180 lbs. What’s not known is whether Canelo will be required to keep his weight within 170 for the IBF’s same day weight check, which is supposed to take place at 9:00 A.M. this Saturday morning. The commentators for today’s weigh-in were talking about the fighters not needing to weigh-in again, which they felt would benefit the heavier fighter. That would-be Canelo.

If Canelo doesn’t have to weigh-in again to make sure his weight isn’t over 170, then it helps him, because he clearly looked like the heavier guy than Golovkin during the last 2 weeks. It still may not help Canelo even if he rehydrates as much as possible. All the extra weight could be a factor in slowing him down, causing him to be slower, less able to fight as hard as he needs to be. Adding a great deal of muscle weight for a fight like Golovkin is a potentially risky thing to do. It could workout in Canelo’s favor in a big way, but it could also hurt him by leaving him with less energy to fight hard if Golovkin is still around in the second half of the fight.

What Golovkin, 35, meant by saying he wants to give the boxing fans a “big gift” is he wants to go out and knockout Canelo. “Big gift” is code from GGG that he plans on going out and annihilating his opponent. Golovkin seems to be near perfect when he uses those words in knocking out his opposition. We didn’t hear Golovkin say he wanted to give the fans a “big gift” before his last fight against Danny Jacobs. The theme for that fight from Golovkin was “I need a decision fight,” which is exactly what he did in beating Jacobs by a 12 round unanimous decision. Golovkin is now back on his “big gift” kick, which can only mean one thing. He plans on going out and knocking the 27-year-old Canelo out on Saturday night when the two of them fight at the sold-out T-Mobile Center.

“Listen, when I was born, being afraid was already given out,” said Canelo after the weigh-in. “They can say what they want. We’re a day away. I’m going to show him what Canelo is.”

Canelo has the more muscles and definition than Golovkin, but the bigger guy as far as the shoulders, arms, fists and overall bone structure looked like Golovkin. He looks like he’s got the bigger frame of the two. We’ll find out on Saturday whether Canelo’s added muscles will bring him Golovkin-like power to make it an even fight. Some fighters do get a lot more powerful when they pack on a lot of muscles, but I think it’s not common for that to happen. Bone structure is more important.

If Canelo isn’t hitting harder than before, then the extra muscle weight that he’s packed on will not help him on Saturday. In fact, the muscle weight might hurt him. Canelo and Golovkin aren’t lining up on the offense line in a football game use their weight to try and win. This isn’t that type of sport.

Adding muscle might help Canelo on the inside if he can maul Golovkin and wrestle him. That’s not been Canelo’s style of fighting. He doesn’t do a lot of holding and wrestling, and it’s unlikely that he’ll start doing that for this fight.

Canelo might be able to take Golovkin’s shots better with the added weight, but I’m not a believer in that theory. Adding weight doesn’t seem to protect a person’s head from punches. I think it helps them take body shots a little bit better, because their arms are bigger and can block the body shots. But if the punches are landing squarely to the body, it won’t matter how much muscle weight Canelo has. He’s going to be effected by them.

These are the crucial factors for Saturday’s Canelo vs. Golovkin fight:

• How does the extra weight effect Canelo?

• Can Golovkin handle Canelo’s hand speed advantage

• Will Golovkin get old on Saturday?

• What happens if Goovkin can’t land his head shots?

• Will Canelo be slower?

• Does Canelo gas out because of the added weight?

• Can Golovkin win a decision against Canelo in Vegas?

• Canelo’s bad habit of fighting with emotion. Will this hurt him against Golovkin?

• Is Golovkin over-the-hill?

There are a lot of questions that will be answered on Saturday night by these two fighters. Golovkin is the one that hasn’t looked good lately in his last couple of fights. He’s the one that has more question marks circling over his head. He’s older, and he’s not looked good in a while since his win over Dominic Wade last year.

Canelo could be catching Golovkin at the right time of his career with him having slipped a bit. We don’t know if Golovkin has slipped or if that was simply him deciding he needed a “Decision fight” against Jacobs in his last match.